Vote for progress, not for chaos

October 28, 2012

If you watched the vice presidential debate on Oct. 11, you may have been able to pick up on the Republican subversion, revealing how the plan to bankrupt the government and destroy all social safety-net programs is going to be done.

Mr. "Budget Specialist" Paul Ryan told you how starting another war in either Syria or Iran will bankrupt us, and thus become the battle cry for eliminating Social Security, Medicare, federal funds for education and more tax cuts for the top 2 percent with total deregulation of all corporate and financial rules. Starting another war or two doesn't concern him in the least. He'd simply add the cost to the national debt, and blame it on the middle class, the 47 percent, and those who don't pay income tax because they don't make enough money, i.e. the working poor.

He claims to be worried about the budget deficit, but keeps finding ways to increase it. His budget makes no sense, and according to the congressional budget office, would be a disaster to our economic well-being. Remember, it wasn't Barack Obama who used off-budget loans from China to start the war in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan and then cut taxes on the richest among us so Wall Street could profit from them. Also, keep in mind that Ryan voted against the minimum wage increase, middle class tax cuts and the ability of Medicare to negotiate for cheaper drug prices for Medicare. He also thinks that a voucher to buy health insurance from your local health insurer is a great idea. It wouldn't even pay half the cost of coverages and there'd be no rule to keep your rate from going up 40 percent every year. If you had a pre-existing condition, you'd pay even more.

His budget is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. He says he can pay for tax cuts by closing tax loopholes. Which ones? Will you lose the tax deduction on the cost of health insurance or the deduction for education funding?

Will you lose the tax deduction for charitable contributions? He won't say which deductions you're going to lose, but says "trust, me, I'll reveal my plan after the election," when it will be too late to vote against him.

Finally, he perpetuates the myth that there's a war on coal from the president. Sorry, Paul, that's another lie we won't swallow.

The federal Department of Health and Human Services has reported that mining and drilling permits are up 46 percent since the president was elected. That resulted in 177,000 new mining jobs in the last four years. Does that sound like a war on energy? They're distorting the facts and twisting the truth - 43 straight months of new private sector jobs, 5.3 million jobs added. We need to keep this going forward, not return to the policies that almost put us into national bankruptcy.